Appendix BJapanese 32d Army Units In theRyukyus Campaign

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This list of 32d Army units
was compiled by G-2, Tenth Army, from captured documents and prisoner of war
interrogations. While information on enemy units is more complete for the
Okinawa operation than for any other Pacific campaign, it is not possible
to reconstruct the troop list of the 32d Army without gaps and uncertainties
as to both units and their strengths. The following list may omit some units
which were destroyed during the battle and others which were disbanded in
order to transfer their personnel to other units depleted in combat.

Uncertainty with regard to the strength
of the units arises chiefly from the fact that there exist only the roughest
estimates of the total number of Okinawans brought into the 32d Army. These
Okinawans fall into three classes, of which only the first can be estimated
with reasonable accuracy: (i) the Boeitai (Okinawan Home Guard), comprising
an estimated 20,000 men; (2) the Okinawans used to supplement the Japanese
forces in old units, most of which had arrived at Okinawa understrength; (3)
the Okinawans employed in a few instances to form new units with a Japanese
nucleus. Since the full extent to which Japanese forces were augmented by
Okinawans is not known, the following list gives only the estimated strength
of the various units in respect to their Japanese elements.

Footnotes

1.
Strengths of the 1st and 2d Provisional Brigs (1st-6th Special Established
Regts) and of the 6th and 50th Special Established Bns are omitted because
the service units from which they were formed are itemized individually
in this list.

Transcribed and formatted for HTML by Patrick Clancey, HyperWar Foundation